How training and experience effect your thinking

[warhawke]

Recently I have come to realize just how much impact our training, experience and other factors have on how we view our firearms. Everyone is different but some general principles can be seen in the various groups of shooters. Each and every subgroup which makes up the shooting community has its own views and perspectives and we should understand them if we wish to improve ourselves and strengthen our community. Too often we develop an us-versus-them mentality within the shooting community and this hurts the entire gun culture and the it is only through understanding one another that we can come together as a group and face our true enemies. It is with this in mind that I offer my perspective on how we differ. 

I am a survivalist, I was raised to view things through that reality tunnel. As such I look at weapons as a total system, not just the weapons themselves but the parts, magazines, cleaning equipment and everything related to care and use of the weapon I view as a whole. I consider my ability to support the weapon and keep it running without outside help. I look at the weapon in the context of how many jobs it can do for me instead as a specialized instrument designed to do one job superbly. I also choose weapons which can be expected to run with minimal care, not for years, but for generations. The goal of obtaining and training with my weapons is to allow me and those with me to survive without the normal mechanisms of civilized society. My weapons are tools to allow me to master my environment no matter the nature of the challenges I am presented with. 

The collectors see their weapons in a more mechanical and artistic sense. It is the weapon itself, its history, its design that attracts this person. While the collector may well enjoy shooting his possessions he does not see them as tools for controlling his environment but simply to enjoy them as objects. Likewise the target shooter views his weapons as a means of honing and demonstrating his skills, not using those skills in the world outside the range.

The hunter looks first to the game and chooses the weapon accordingly. The rules of hunting call for clear shoots with little obstruction to either observation or shot and will involve an absolute minimum of shots fired. The hunter expects his weapon to function perfectly every time, and given the limited nature of its operation should do so for many years. The hunter sees, not an adversary but a target. Even the most dangerous animal, while the hunter may respect it, has little chance of turning the tables and becoming a threat and none at all of being a threat at a distance.

The armed civilian on the other hand tends to look only at the narrow issue of carrying a handgun concealed on their person. The handgun is their primary (and sometimes only) weapon and they view it as such. You hear questions of finish, weight, size, caliber and effectiveness. You often hear them discuss the issue of carrying several handguns, and even whether spare ammunition should be ignored in favor of other loaded handguns. The ability to hit at a distance, to penetrate hardened targets, to kill large animals, etc. are completely foreign to their way of thinking.

The Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) has an entirely different set of issues (I speak here of regular LEO's, not SWAT or specialized operators). The LEO's job is not to harm or kill, but to subdue and detain. The primary weapon of the LEO is the handgun, but it is just one tool among many. Tasers, pepper-spray, batons and other non-lethal options come before the pistol and the shotgun and patrol rifle come after. To the LEO lethal force is something to be avoided if possible and any action must be limited in scope (no spray-and-pray allowed) and is strictly reactive in nature.

Lastly we have those who have been trained by the military. Military trained personnel are different from all other members of the shooting community in that they are 'Active shooters'. The job of the military is to take the fight to the enemy, even in 'defensive' situations the job is to see the enemy and hit him hard. The soldier is trained to respond to a threat actively and offensively in an environment with little concern for the niceties of civil law, this is not to say that the soldier is lawless or kill happy but rather that the circumstances and environment that they are trained for is so radically different that it cannot be judged by the same standards as the civilian. Once the soldier has reentered civilian life many of these lessons remain and the person tends towards the same type of weapons they used in the military, think of how many former soldiers go on to purchase the civilian versions of their service weapon. Think too of how many times we have heard of former soldiers who act offensively when confronted with violence in the civilian world.

Why is all of this important? Because we in the gun culture often our own worst enemies. We fail to empathize with our fellow gun owners and shooters. Look at the example of Jim Zumbo, a long time hunter and shooter whose complete failure to understand those outside of his personal sub-culture led to others in our community to cast him out and destroy his career. The problem is that most of us are guilty of similar transgressions, albeit not to the same degree and not as publicly. I myself have been guilty of dismissing and disrespecting certain shooters, without understanding that just because I find their activity silly or incomprehensible doesn't make them any less my fellow shooters. We are all in this together and we all have the same enemies. The anti-gunners want all of our guns, not just the pistols or the "assault weapons" or the other specific target of the month. Just because I think dressing up like a cowboy and slinging a sixgun is silly does not make those who enjoy it idiots anymore than my ownership and use of semiautomatic rifles makes me a rampaging psycho. We all need to start trying to see things from the others guys perspective and agreeing to disagree on the details and remember that we must all hang together or we shall surely hang separately.

[m25operator]

Warhawke, it is obvious that you took a lot of time and effort for your post. I commend you on your effort. I think you also took a real hard look at these forums and maybe thought We all have different views and angles toward gun use.

I have always been a survivalist at heart, I learned to shoot and hunt for self preservation, I come from a time when we had bomb drills as a normal part of elementary school, I began what we called combat shooting in the 80's for the same reason. I was present and voted when our club president said the new USPSA,  wanted to know if we wanted to be martial artists, or go gamey. We lost the vote, gamey it became, and to this day I think Uncle Jeff and Lee Jurras were usurped. USPSA should have started their own game, called Gun Racing, and it would still be a viable sport, and left the original IPSC  alone. But back to your main point, We do need to accept and support all the shooting sports or non sports, like just shooting in a gravel pit, or trash dump, ( safe area, without supervision or rules ) or like Michaels battle with the Forest Service . We should also promote shooting in any form, but always be ready to defend or condemn other shooting opinions, and always ready to educate, the less informed.

I fall into most of the categories you mentioned, including yours. In a peaceful time, I'm a collector, hunter, competitor, and all around shooting kind of guy, But I've put away alot of ammo, magazines, flashlights, food, containers, seed,  water, reloading supplies, vehicles, medical equipment and firearms, I could honestly arm my whole neighborhood, with ammo. But if it's bugout time, I will have to leave most of these things behind and take my most usable items and go. I am also prepared for that. I live in an urban area, where things can go to hell in a handbasket very quickly, but our community has very rural roots, and many of my neighbors are of a similar mindset. Different people, different mindsets, different social concepts, like I have read on these forums. Maybe not the individual but the city, county or state they live in.  Law enforcement in my community is mainly hometown people, they may not understand an individual having  50 guns, but they don't think that is a crisis.  One of local swat guys has started a long distance shooting range within 90 miles with tactical events the public is invited and I know this man. I Wish you could all live in Texas, for the life of me I cannot understand why firearms manufacturers pick their locations in firearm unfriendly states, I know part of it has to do with metal supply, and these states give big tax cuts for them being there. but hey, wake up. We need more Ronnie  Barretts and Mr. Skinner from STI. 


I read your end of the world as we know it post, and it makes sense. Weapons systems, ( dependability, spare parts, availablity and accuracy within your threshold.) As my mentor suggested, if you survive 500 rounds of battle, there will be as much ammo and weapons as you want to pick up.

To be continued I'm sure, Merry Christmas and Happy any deity you prefer.

[2HOW]

Great post, I like the part about controlling my environment, well said ( I posted this on P4L and gave you due credit of course)

[tumblebug]

Reasoning what a concept. WELL SAID BOTH OF YOU.

[Michael Bane]

This may be the best and most inteliigent post I have ever read on a firearms forum...I congratulate you both!

Interestingly enough, I was at a cowboy action shooting banquet in Vegas Saturday night, and I was seated next to your basic formally dressed cowboy, hat and all. In the course of theevening's conversation, he mentioned that he was apolice officer involved in a recent shooting. He'd won, and he told me that he thanked God for every round he had fired as a cowboy competitor, because when other people's lives were on the line, his shooting skills were 100%.

As you know, I came out of IPSC shooting. I was a disciple of Jeff Cooper, a martial artist and an enthusiastic competitor. Through people I met in those early IPSC/USPSA matches, I became involved in law enforcement training, including some early simulations with the then-new paintball guns. Like a lot of other young (and stupid) people, I burned myself up on competition and took a break — still shooting; just not competing — and spent a decade in very high risk sports like cave diving, mountaineering, ice climbing, etc. That totally changed the way I viewed mental training, decision-making under high stress.

I have found that I have a different relationship with shooting these days, especially after five years with SHOOTING GALLERY, where I spend a lot of time shooting all sorts of firearms. My goal now is to be good with whatever is put in my hands, whether it's some weird machine gun or a custom 1911. I love cowboy action shooting, becaused I love the guns of the Old West. If I gotta wear cowboy drag to compete, I'm cool with that. I occasionally shoot IDPA and USPSA Single Stack and enjoy them both thoroughly. I am a huge fan of competition for a couple of reasons — gun-handling skills and the "innoculation" of artificial stress. Shooking under fake stress is better than never shooting under stress at all.

I believe in training, especially force-on-force and simulation training, for anyone and everyone who carries a gun. Like both of you, I have a strong preparedness streak (not to mention that I live in a place where we're regularly on our own every winter, so I get to practice what I preach). I try and see all my "serious" guns as weapons systems and treat them accordingly.

The most important thing we can do is see our connections rather than our differences!

Michael B

[Sponsor]

[MikeBjerum]

Our daughter has been very successful in competition (no shooting,but...).  She takes competition very seriously, whether it is speaking, writing, showing animals or interviewing for a postition.  One day while she was in Jr. High School she came across a quote (I wish I could remember where she found it) that she made a big sign out of and put on the back of her bedroom door next to the mirror she used for make-up and hair (imagine the amount of time that sign was right in front of her).

The quote:

"You perform how you practice!"

Author Unknown

[tanstaafl2]

One of the most infuriating traits of gun owners is our tendency to view with derision people outside our particular gun interest.  We not only think or say, "Whew - at least they're not after MY guns!", but all too often, "Good riddance - those other guys are just the fringe, and not the 'real' gun culture."

Folks, the only other gun owners of whom we should be intolerant are those who are unsafe with their guns.  My passion is collecting inexpensive mil-surp weapons, learning how they tie into history, and taking them out and making them go bang once in a while.  I personally think the hard-core collectors who pay thousands of dollars for a gun because it has a slight difference from the other 20 copies of the same model in their collection are nuts, and I flat out cringe at some of the colors (hot pink!?!) people choose in their synthetic grips and gun stocks.  BUT - it's a big tent, and as long as those other folks don't put me or other innocents in danger, I'm happy to share the tent with them.  As history has repeatedly shown us, the grabbers want ALL of our guns eventually - if they want somebody else's gun today, they want yours tomorrow.  The ink wasn't even dry on the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban before the Violence Policy Center put out a call to ban "scoped high power sniper rifles" (the deer rifles used by 15 million of us every year). 

Probably the biggest division in our ranks is that between the hunters and the "gun nuts".  If you're willing to toss us to the wolves (yeah - I'm a gun nut.  Guns are just plain fun - paying lots of money for a deer lease so I can get up WAAAY too early and freeze my butt off is not.  I'll save the money, buy a cheeseburger, and enjoy punching a couple hundred holes in a target with my AR-15 at the range) you're allowing people to say you must have a justification for owning guns.

[jaybet]

One of the most infuriating traits of gun owners is our tendency to view with derision people outside our particular gun interest. 
Folks, the only other gun owners of whom we should be intolerant are those who are unsafe with their guns. 
 Guns are just plain fun -

Well said! The sporting club I belong to has only a few guiding principles: #1, 2 & 3 is safety. After that: Comraderie. That's it. We are all in the same boat as bearers of arms, and the anti-s see us all in one group. Guns really ARE fun and that's very hard for a lot of people to understand, but it should not be for gun owners.

You see this in all areas. I was a volunteer firefighter for a long time and there was always the "serious" personnel and the "squirrels"- the folks who had one too many lights on their vehicles- one too many firefighter t-shirts, etc. Unless someone is careless or dangerous with their firearms, you should consider them your brother or sister in arms. That's how the other side sees you.

[Bidah]

Excellent post.  We have a club locally here that basically only allows sporting or custom bolt action rifles.  The also only allow 25yd bullseye pistol shooting.  Needless to say, I don't belong there...

I have slowly been bringing my dad around, but he is still of the hunter mindset and frowns on my black rifle hunting.  Of course he has learned that I don't care what he thinks, I am going to do it anyway..

-Bidah